Well on the advice from this forum back when I was an active poster I left my first electrical job ($12.50 per hr) as a crew leader for a campus electrical crew for a private electrical contractor. After a year and a half of that drama i jumped ship and started my own company. Two of his customers chose to continue to work with me rather than him but I didn't solicitate their business just told them I was leaving (i was actively working their site) of course he threatened law suits etc but with no non-compete in place he could do nothing. So I'm out on my own now and hopefully will be back to ET in the thousand of hours of free time i will have as a self employed electrician. Wanted to thank you guys for getting me to move from the first job, which that advice also left me unsatisfied with the second. Self employed is working out much better so far.

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Well Joe mostly in the hours of hallucinating i spend between work hours (can't really call it sleeping lol) I haven't even started advertising yet and I have more work than I can keep up with. I brought a helper on 4 days a week and have two guys doing evening calls. My wife works evenings and weekends so I'm on dad duty then which means my actual working hours stay around 50 hours but a large chunk of my hometime is the paperwork which i haven't really even begun to count as part of my work week

Well Joe mostly in the hours of hallucinating i spend between work hours (can't really call it sleeping lol) I haven't even started advertising yet and I have more work than I can keep up with. I brought a helper on 4 days a week and have two guys doing evening calls. My wife works evenings and weekends so I'm on dad duty then which means my actual working hours stay around 50 hours but a large chunk of my hometime is the paperwork which i haven't really even begun to count as part of my work week

You need to keep up with your hours lest you work for minimum wage.

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Yeah I just raised my rates another $10 I am fairly sure that I'm still under the competition but I feel I'm paying well so far. It's hard to gauge only being 2 months in but so far I've made all my bills

Yeah I just raised my rates another $10 I am fairly sure that I'm still under the competition but I feel I'm paying well so far. It's hard to gauge only being 2 months in but so far I've made all my bills

What are your rates based upon though?

You raised them $10, was that too much? Was it too little? How do you know?

When you say "I'm still under the competition" what do you mean?

I agree that only being 2 months in your going to have large adjustments to make, and asking questions about whether what you are doing is right or wrong is a good move.

We are all students of the game, none of us have mastered it. Even the likes of very successful guys like Flyboy and Brian seek more knowledge and guidance. What makes them successful is seeking the guidance and then acting on the good advice.

I've talked to some other local ecs and got an idea of their rates when I first started my side work I based my rates of my first bosses rates and his were very low so I've been raising mine steadily since then. My ten dollar bump was mostly to give me more breathing room when paying travel time and to cover screw ups it puts me in the lower end of the one man shops that I know their rates ideally I would have bumped it 20 but I also have a fairly large existing customer base

Based on what I have found from asking others the typical 2 man crew runs 95-125 per hour and either hourly one way with a fuel charge or a service call fee. Quote jobs tend to be right at 40-45 per man hour. My first boss charged 65 per hour I have been charging 85 per hour with a 105 service call fee that includes the first hour I've bumped up to 120 for first hour and 95 hourly which puts me on the low average of the people I talked to. I'll bump up again here in a few months to get to the higher end of the average as I feel I do high average work not low average work. If I left it where it was @85 I feel it would be undercutting the market but 95 -105 per hour is pretty standard though there are two shops that hit 200 per hour but they are mostly commission style

Given that I am 2 months in I don't have solid numbers on my overhead costs yet I have a general idea of it because I have carried the insurance and payroll for awhile now but covering my own expenses is new as well as bringing on help. The 85 per hr with 105 was based on me and 3 guys in 2 crews each averaging 20hrs (40 hrs a week total) and a 10% profit but that changes as I actually hire those people and bring on benefits etc thus the$10 bump up

Given that I am 2 months in I don't have solid numbers on my overhead costs yet I have a general idea of it because I have carried the insurance and payroll for awhile now but covering my own expenses is new as well as bringing on help. The 85 per hr with 105 was based on me and 3 guys in 2 crews each averaging 20hrs (40 hrs a week total) and a 10% profit but that changes as I actually hire those people and bring on benefits etc thus the$10 bump up

Can we please move this thread to the "Business Lounge Private" section? Posting these hourly rates on an open, public forum does our industry no good.

I know that you don't know this yet and you certainly aren't alone, but you cannot run a profitable business on those hourly rates. Contrary to popular belief, it has nothing to do with where you live or what your competitors are doing. Try real hard to get that out of your head and politely ignore anyone that tells you differently. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

If you really want to know how to do it, PM me with your email address and in a couple of days I'll send you a spread sheet and instructions for determining what your hourly rate needs to be.